Song choice ratings: safest songs

In the first stab at analyzing song choice, I looked at artists who are commonly sung on Idol, and how safe (historically) the contestants who sang those songs had been. However, in that case I was only focusing on the artist, not the songs, so long as the artist had more than one of their songs sung. Today, I will focus on a rating for songs that are commonly sung on Idol, regardless of who they were by.

1016 songs have been sung on Idol, with 677 of those having been sung only once. There’s not much I can say about those, since one data point doesn’t even make the slightest of trends. So, focusing in on those 349 other songs, I want to look at how safe they appear to be and rank them in a manner similar to the artists. This means looking at how many times they were sung, how often the contestants were safe, how many had their standing improved by such a song (in that they were people who had previously been in the bottom 3). I incorporate all performances except for reprises (songs repeated for the finale) or American Idol official songs.

More after the jump

The safest song appears to be I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing by Aerosmith. That song was sung 7 times, and all of the performances were safe (not bottom 3, eliminated, or saved). Also with perfect records even after multiple iterations are I Don’t Want To Be byGavin Degrawand Alone by Heart, with 5 performances apiece. However, the Mariah Carey song Without You (also sung by Badfinger and Nilsson), with only 4 performances, has something of an advantage: two of the people who sung it had been in the bottom 3 before, but were safe with this song. That is, safe percentage is not the only consideration; one should also consider whether the person was likely safe anyway.

As before, I’ve sort of tweaked the way the system works to my liking. There’s no clear cut way to evaluate the several factors, so I’ve just given it my impression. The table below ranks the songs. A safe-song index of greater than 1 is above average and under 1 is below average. Let’s look at the Top 10 songs.

Rank

Song

Times sung

Safe Ratio

Bottom prev.

Safe-song Index

1

I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing

7

1.00

2

1.68

2

Someone To Watch Over Me

3

1.00

3

1.67

3

Without You

4

1.00

2

1.66

4

I Don’t Want To Be

5

1.00

1

1.64

5

A House Is Not A Home

4

1.00

1

1.61

6

Come Together

4

1.00

1

1.61

7

I (Who Have Nothing)

4

1.00

1

1.61

8

Stand By Me

4

1.00

1

1.61

9

Tonight I Wanna Cry

4

1.00

1

1.61

10

Over The Rainbow

3

1.00

2

1.61

Each of these songs have perfect ratios, but Over The Rainbow has done so even with 2 people that had been in the bottom 3 before. That puts it about even with something like Come Together which had only one such person.

Now the bottom 10:

Rank

Song

Times sung

Safe Ratio

Bottom prev.

Safe-song Index

315

When I See You Smile

2

0.00

0

0.38

316

Love Will Lead You Back

3

0.00

3

0.33

317

(Everything I Do) I Do It For You

3

0.00

2

0.28

318

How Do I Live

3

0.00

1

0.22

319

No One

3

0.00

1

0.22

320

Open Arms

3

0.00

1

0.22

321

River Deep – Mountain High

3

0.00

1

0.22

322

True Colors

3

0.00

1

0.22

323

The Way You Look Tonight

4

0.00

2

0.18

324

I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)

4

0.00

0

0.09

The worst song is Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody. Nobody has been safe with that choice, and for all of them it was their first time in the bottom 3. All of the worst 10 songs has a zero safe ratio, but that one is worst of all. River Deep – Mountain High is the song that got Pia Toscano kicked, and is a Tina Turner song, which is not a good idea.